The SEI helps advance software engineering principles and practices and serves as a national resource in software engineering, computer security, and process improvement. The SEI works closely with defense and government organizations, industry, and academia to continually improve software-intensive systems. Its core purpose is to help organizations improve their software engineering capabilities and develop or acquire the right software, defect free, within budget and on time, every time.

Abstract

This position paper argues that a successful COTS evaluation process should be based on the principles of method engineering (ME). Following a brief description of an ME approach underpinned by a metamodel, some method fragments related to component-based software engineering are offered as the starting point for the creation of a complete suite of method fragments for future COTS evaluation processes.